


Twists of Fate

by azuredragonsleeps



Series: Malec Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-06-10 12:21:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6956281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azuredragonsleeps/pseuds/azuredragonsleeps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: I know there have been loads of these but soulmate au?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Magnus Bane has always hated the idea of soulmates. The idea you could only ever love one person, that you only had one shot at true happiness, seemed ridiculous, especially for someone who had centuries to live. He hates that a name could appear on your wrist and suddenly someone had a claim to you. He’s seen it ruin people. He’s seen women pulled out of their lives and forced to marry their soulmates throughout history. He’s seen couples shunned for their bond because it was between two men or two women. He’s seen downworlders bonded with humans, seen how the connection complicated their lives. So all in all, Magnus is pretty glad he doesn’t have a mark.

He finds love for himself anyway, or at least he tries. Some of them even last a long time. Still, he never finds anyone who seems to love him in the same way he loves them, never finds anyone he feels equally matched with. Occasionally he does wonder what it would be like to have someone meant for him.

Of course, when it happens, it’s not simple.

He wakes up one day with a name on his wrist. _Alexander Lightwood_. He’s never wanted a soulmate anyway, but now that he has this, he feels something bitter and hollow in his chest. A _shadowhunte_ r. Not only a shadowhunter but a Lightwood. The person the universe thinks he should be with is one of the Nephilim, who probably thinks that all downworlders are beneath him.

He looks into it anyway. He finds out that Alexander is the son of Maryse Lightwood-and isn’t that rich, a woman who tried to kill him gave birth to his soulmate-and that he’s at the New York institute.

He doesn’t leave, but he does make sure he doesn’t run into any shadowhunters over the next few years. He might be a little curious, but he doesn’t want to meet Alexander. He doesn’t want to see his soulmate reject him, doesn’t want to see the disgust that he knows Alexander must have for his downworlder soulmate. Or, even worse, he doesn’t want Alexander to try and make some kind of claim on Magnus’s life, doesn’t want him to assume that he has any right to Magnus’s time just because of a stupid name on his wrist.

So he’s completely unprepared when, almost eighteen years after he first got his mark, a group of shadowhunters wander into his loft. He takes them in, Clary Fairchild and her mundane friend, the dark haired girl and the blond haired boy who ooze confidence, and find his eyes resting on the boy he knows is Alexander. Magnus is unprepared for how gorgeous he is, but he supposes he should have expected that his soulmate would be everything Magnus finds attractive. He notices, that despite his shy demeanour, the boy gives him something of a once over too, and to his horror it makes something heat in the pit of stomach. Flustered, he finds himself throwing the worst parts of his childhood at the shadowhunters, the words spiky and defensive. He looks at Alec, and is shocked to see sympathy in the shadowhunters eyes. He grins at him despite himself, and Alexander blushes. Magnus is oddly charmed despite himself.

Still, the boy makes no move to acknowledge the fact that they’re soulmates, and Magnus certainly isn’t going to, so they part ways. Magnus isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or relieved.

It’s not long after this, when Magnus, who is with a client at the time, feels a sharp pain in his chest, bad enough to cause him to fall to his knees. He knows it’s not his pain. He doesn’t think twice before heading to the institute, and if Isabelle Lightwood wonders how he knew they needed help, she doesn’t ask.

He heals Alexander, but he can’t bring himself to stay.

Yet barely a week later, there’s a knock on his door, and Alexander Lightwood enters his loft.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says, looking shy but painfully earnest. “For saving my life.”

Magnus blinks. He tries to remember the last time a shadow hunter had thanked him for something. It’s definitely been at least a hundred years. He wonders if Alec is only here because of the mark on his wrist. He thinks, oddly, that Alec might have come anyway.

“You’re…welcome?” He says, careful to keep his voice blank.

Alec shifts a little, looking uncomfortable. Then he says “I wondered…I mean… I have your name on my wrist.” He’s flushing red, and not quite meeting Magnus’s eyes. Magnus tries hard not to find it endearing.

He says nothing, no longer quite sure what he wants here, and waits.

“I’m not trying to…” Alec pauses, and seems to be trying to figure out how to say whatever it is he’s thinking. “I know you don’t owe me anything. But I wanted to ask if you…Do you want to go out with me? On a date?”  


“Well that was…direct.” Magnus, notes, more to himself that to Alec.

Alec shrugs a little, almost apologetically. He looks tense, like he expects Magnus to say no. Like he thinks that Magnus has the right to say no.

“Okay.” Magnus says, surprising himself as he says it. “How’s Friday?”

Alec smiles, and Magnus thinks that maybe this whole soulmate idea isn’t so bad after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Alec's pov of the soulmate fic

Alec Lightwood loves the idea of soulmates when he’s young. He remembers reading about them in the library at the institute, remembers thinking how nice it would be to have someone just for him. At the time he’s lonely, with only a sister not yet old enough to be a friend and three adults still dealing with their defeat for company. Someone who is destined to be his sounds like heaven.

His understanding is shaken a little when he’s six. His mother yells at him for taking off the wrist band that’s covering the name, tells him never to show the name to anyone. For the first time he realises that not everything about soulmates is good.

He learns, as he grows, what the clave thinks of soulmates. He learns that while in the mundane world the laws are designed to let soulmates out of marriages, to help them move countries, anything to help them be together, duty comes first for shadowhunters. It’s not that the clave disapproves, exactly, he knows that soulmate shadowhunter couples are celebrated. It’s just that if a person’s soulmate is unsuitable then they are expected to cover their mark and find someone else.

Alec realises that Magnus Bane, whoever he is, will never be suitable in the clave’s eyes, because Magnus Bane is a man’s name.

So he keeps his wrist covered, and he works at his training to be the best he can be. He tries to forget about how much he had wanted a soulmate, and concentrates on looking after his family. It’s easier after Max is born and Jace comes to live with them. Alec has two new people to look out for. He manages to only occasionally wonder who Magnus Bane is.

When Alec is fifteen, he falls in love with Jace. He knows it can never happen, they’re going to be parabatai, and Jace never once looks at him like that. But it does make him question soulmates a little, because if he could fall for anyone, what’s so special about his soulmate? Not that it matters, because he’ll never have the clave’s approval to be with anyone he loves, if they’re a man. He tries to be okay with that.

*

 Then, one day when Alec is nearly eighteen, Jace comes home white-faced.

“I found my soulmate” he says.

Alec forces down the jealousy and tries to be a good brother.

“A mundane?” he asks cautiously. Jace has always pretended to be sceptical about soulmates, but Alec has always suspected that he wanted to find his a lot more than he let on. A mundane soulmate would be difficult to get the clave to accept.

Jace shakes his head. “Not exactly,” he says.

* 

Alec doesn’t really hate Clary Fray. He does however, hate the chaos that she brings with her, and if he’s completely honest he can’t help but be a little jealous of the way Jace looks at her. Partly because he wishes Jace would look at him like that, but mostly just because he wishes he could have anyone look at him like that, wishes he could have what they can.

His only real thoughts on her quest to find what’s happened to her memories are that this is bound to cause trouble, and a vague sense of pity for her, for losing her mom.

That is until she remembers one name: Magnus Bane.

Not even Izzy has seen the words on his wrist, he’s been so careful at keeping it covered. So, no one notices when Alec becomes dazed and distracted from the moment he hears that name.

It turns out that his soulmate is the high warlock of Brooklyn and Alec is sure the universe must be playing some kind of practical joke on him. The person he’s destined to be with is the last person the clave would ever accept. And even if that wasn’t an issue there’s the fact that the man’s _the high warlock of Brooklyn._ Alec can’t imagine that someone like that would ever want to be tied to him, the quiet shadowhunter who hides behind his siblings. Still, he’s curious.

They go to the party, and Alec can’t help but stare at the man as soon as he’s introduced. Magnus Bane is gorgeous. He looks mystical and interesting and Alec cannot believe that the universe could think that there was any way someone like that could be destined for him. Magnus mentions his childhood, and Alec feels a rush of sympathy at the awfulness of it. He’s never given much thought to downworlders before, or their struggles. Maybe now is the time to start.

He wants to say something, anything, to Magnus before they leave. But he knows they could never work and he has no idea what to say so he lets the moment pass. There’s a heaviness that follows him around for the rest of the week, a sense of regret.

*

When Alec wakes up after being injured, he is confused. He shouldn’t be alive. When he finds out that Magnus came to the institute and healed him, warmth fills his chest. He doesn’t know if it means anything, if Magnus wants anything to do with him but he does remember being six and wanting someone for his very own. He wonders if Magnus had ever wanted that.

He decides he should thank Magnus, at the very least. As he approaches Magnus’s apartment, he wonders if he’ll even let in. But he is, and Magnus doesn’t look annoyed to see him. If anything, there’s a flicker of pleasure on his face.

“You’re…welcome?” Magnus says slowly after Alec thanks him. He sounds a little confused and Alec thinks that maybe Magnus is just as clueless about all this as he is.

It gives him just enough confidence to say ““I wondered…I mean… I have your name on my wrist.” He feels himself flush red as he says it, and looks anywhere but at Magnus. He waits a moment, but Magnus says nothing, so he pushes on.

“I’m not trying to...” he pauses, trying to gather his thoughts. “I know you don’t owe me anything. But I wanted to ask if you…Do you want to go out with me? On a date?”

“Well that was…direct.” Magnus responds, quietly.

Alec shrugs, not sure what to say. He’s almost sure that Magnus is going to say no, and it’s only now that he’s here that he’s realised he really wants a chance to see whether the universe is right about this.

“Okay.” Magnus says. “How’s Friday?”

Alec feels a grin form on his face. This might be a big mistake, and it could get him into real trouble with the clave, but the answering smile on Magnus’s face makes him think it might be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So someone asked for Alec's point of view on soulmates, so here is my attempt to continue this. If you liked it and would like to see anything else you can prompt me on my tumblr at starsarewishesindisguise.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I'm making no money.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr|fallingthoughfandoms


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